The police in Obudu, northern part of Cross River State, have arrested two men, Stephen Apebende and his unidentified friend, for allegedly photographing police officers via their cell phones while extorting road users. This came just as the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase, had during his visit to Calabar berated some commissioners of police for being responsible for extortions from road users.
The detained men, who spent their Easter Sunday and Monday holidays at the police cell in Obudu Police Station, were arrested along the Obudu Ranch Resort Road at the police checkpoint just before the residence of the Chief of Staff to Governor Ben Ayade, Mr. Martins Orim.
GISTMANIA learnt on Friday that the officers were furious that Apebende and his friend had captured them while collecting bribe from road users. The situation was further compounded after the policemen discovered that they could not gain access to the photo album of the android and i-phone that was used by the duo in capturing their images. A family source, Ugbe Samson, said, “The two men were released on Monday after the policemen brought in a local GSM phone guru to unlock the seized phones.” It was learnt that Apebende, who works with a non-governmental organisation with focus on HIV/AIDS, would press for legal redress over the matter.
Samson said although Apebende was advised by close family relatives not to push for any case against the police, the plea, it was gathered might not work. When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. John Eluu, said he was not aware of the development.
“I have not got that report from the Obudu division. But I would want to advise those affected to come to the Police headquarters in Calabar to formally lay their complaints if anything of that nature ever happened. The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Henry Fadairo, will attend to such case if they have proof.” Meanwhile, the Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, had during a stakeholders meeting with traditional rulers, Muslim and Christian community leaders and traders, said extortion from road users in any state is a reflection of the disposition of commissioner of police.
Arase, who was responding to complaints from a stakeholder on extortions on highways, said, “You can know a corrupt commissioner of police from the conduct of his men on the highway. If I am driving through some states in Nigeria, I easily perceive the personality of the commissioner through his men.”
See the deplorable state of Mbaise road in Owerri.Imo state capital.Due to the poor state of the road,motorists have to spend much time to get to their destinations.Movement of vehicles is considerably slowed down and sometimes drivers are forced to swerve to avoid heading into pot holes
Some group of boys who were seen urinating on the popular Third Mainland bridge in Lagos -got more than they bargained for as they were apprehended by officials of the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI).... Most of them tried to run but the officials were really prepare for them. See more pictures below;
Remember the trending #KeepDebbieAlive campaign that was launched early this year to help raise funds for 31-year-old Deborah Osarere Idiagbonya to battle cancer?
Sadly, Debbie has finally lost her battle with cancer. She passed away today April 1st, 2016 after years of battling Bosom cancer, liver cancer and just last year, bone cancer. I met her in DC in 2012 and she had such an amazing spirit and her attitude to life was incredible. I truly believed she would beat cancer but I guess God has other plans for her! Sleep well, Debbie! You fought like a champion!
Already, some Nigerian celebrities like Adekunle Gold, ID Cabasa, Osi, most of who campaigned for her during the #KeepDebbieAlive project, have all started mourning her demise.
Some angry youths in Gombe on Friday invaded the residence of the current House of Representatives’ member for Dukku Nafada Federal Constituency, Hajiya Aishatu Jibril Dukku for alleged poor representation, according to reports.
Some of the angry youths, who alleged that the woman had not been carrying them along, said they took the action to warn her that they could not be used and dumped like trash after realizing her ambition of getting into the legislative chamber.
Already, heavily armed policemen have been drafted to the residence of the legislator in Abuja Quarters Gombe to forestall further skirmishes.
In what can be described as a most shocking case of altercation, two women shocked people when they engaged in a fight over water used to wash corpses.
File photo used only for illustrative purpose
Two street vendors in Lobengula, Zimbabwe, fought over dirty water acquired from dead bodies in a local funeral parlour, which they use to attract clients.
According to Zimbabwe News Online, the two who were identified as Viola Tshuma and Molene Hadebe, fought a fierce battle, after Hadebe, took a bigger portion of the dead corpse water before the arrival of her colleague.
The two vendors, who are said to be close friends, acquired the 'evil water', from a certain funeral parlour along Hebert Chitepo Street in Bulawayo, for their daily business.
The water according to other vendors who were present at the scene of the fight, is usually sold to vendors and women, who use it for different ritual purposes. It is also used to tame husbands from being harsh after discovering that their wives are going out with boyfriends or cooling their tempers in order for women to rule.
Vendors who were also interviewed revealed that the water which would have been extracted from the funeral houses after a dead body is cleaned, is also used to wash fruits , like, apples, peaches and tomatoes, to lure more business, as the water, calls more people, like those who would have attended the funeral.
According to several vendors in Bulawayo, a number of undertakers are selling water from dead corpses, and they make 'good money'.
The two friends were arrested, and charged with public violence, before they were fined and released.
Fast-rising Nollywood actor, Ceejay Perez has lost his life after getting involved in a fatal motor accident yesterday. The tragic incident occurred in Onitsha, Anambra State, claiming the actor’s life and the lives of four other passengers that were in the car. Reports say the car was going at top speed when it ran into a drainage, leaving the vehicle extremely damaged.
Ceejay Perez, who is from Isuofia in Anambra state, has starred in some movies produced in Asaba, Delta State.
An Italian workshop supervisor has provoked anger at a company in a Free Zone Enclave in the Western Region after chaining one of his subordinates to a container in the hot sun as punishment for failing to complete a task assigned him.
The alleged culprit, identified as Manilo Maggiorotto, did the unthinkable with the reason that whenever he assigned work to the victim, he abandoned his and found ways of helping others to do their work.
Therefore, the best way to prevent a recurrence was to chain him. Seething with anger, employees of the multinational logistics company, Gateway Logistics Limited, operating as a Free Zone Company, have appealed to the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) to ensure that justice was done the victim.
Alleged culprit
They described what Maggiorotto did as a re-enactment of the days of slavery – a dehumanising act which, they said, sent shivers down their spine. “He must be apprehended to face the laws of Ghana,” they said.
“This is a Free Zone Company. He is in Ghana as workshop supervisor, an expertise that could easily be procured in Ghana but they brought him here and he constantly looks down on us and treats us as if we are nothing,” they said.
When they were contacted the company, its management acknowledged the incident but declined to comment further as they were dealing with the issue.
How it happened
Describing the incident to the Daily Graphic, one of the workers said their supervisor, on the day of the incident, assigned two of the company’s workers to carry out a task and later reassigned one of them to a different task.
To work as a team, the victim, whose name was given as Ibrahim Sanou, decided to help another employee so they could finish on time.
The source said when the Italian supervisor entered the yard, he realised that Sanou was not doing what he had asked him to do.
“He, therefore, called him, verbally assaulted him and asked him to go and bring the chain from the container. When Sanou returned, Maggiorotto put it around Sanou’s neck and locked it with a huge padlock.
After that he dragged Sanou more than 100 metres to where he originally assigned him.” “The sad part is that he hooked the end of the chain to a container in the sun and went back to his air-conditioned office, ” the source said.
The source said after Sanou had finished the work, the Italian asked one of the workers to go and unlock the chain so that the victim would go and carry out other tasks.
Workers
According to the workers, morale was currently down in the company and the victim, once jovial and energetic, was constantly depressed.
The workers were seeking justice and urged management of the company to ensure Maggiorotto left the workshop for his own safety. That aside, he should apologise to the victim and appropriately compensate him.
When the Daily Graphic visited the company, the workers expressed the view that management was trying to influence the victim financially to say he was not interested in the case.
Dehumanising
At the office of the General Transport, Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union (GTPCWU) of the TUC, the Regional Industrial Relations Officer, Mr Hanson Richard, said the issue had been reported to the union.
“We are aware management is talking to the victim to withdraw the case, but this is a national issue and it is wrong to dehumanise a national to that extent,” he said. Mr. Richard said the union had explained the implications of any inducement to suppress the case and that the national union would take over the case.
“I will pursue the case to ensure that Sanou received justice after which they would demand the repatriation of Maggiorotto to serve as deterrent to others,” he said.
He said several meetings with the management of the company indicated that they were also taking up the issue and the GTPCWU would ensure the law was duly applied.
He recalled a recent case in Accra where a supervisor was reported to have slapped a worker with hot pizza and the locking of workers out without prior notice at various yards in Takoradi.
He urged expatriate workers to learn how to relate to their colleagues.
Company’s reaction
After several attempts to elicit the reaction of the company, the Managing Director, Mr William Moss, agreed to grant an interview March 23, 2016.
However, about 2:30 p.m, Mr Moss called to say he could no longer grant the interview without consulting the local union. He expressed wonder as to what interest the newspaper had in the matter and ended the call.
Memo to workers
However, the Daily Graphic later intercepted a March 21 memo from the Managing Director notifying the employees that Mr Maggiorotto had relinquished his post and returned to Italy with his wife. “I would like to thank Manlio for all his efforts over the past years in the face of considerable difficulties.
He brought new levels of engineering experience and competence to the maintenance function and it was through his dynamism that the workshop at Bokro was created,” it said, adding that “He will be greatly missed”.
A new report on Thursday said despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s attempt at ensuring transparency in the oil sector, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, still withholds billions in oil revenues from the government account. The report by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, titled “NNPC still holds blank check” said that within the first six months of the Buhari administration, the NNPC withheld over $4.2 billion (about N824.7 billion) out of a total of $6.3 billion (N1.24 trillion) revenues realised from crude oil sales in the second half of 2015.
The withheld revenues represented about 66 per cent of the total revenue – $1.4 billion earnings from Nigeria’s regular crude oil exports for the period; $3.4 billion from domestic crude oil sales, and $1.5 billion from oil sold from the corporation’s upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC oil fields. The report said only $2.1 billion (about N413.7 billion) was transferred to the Federation Account.
The group said the unremitted revenues for the six months was about 14 per cent more than the amount withheld by the corporation under the Goodluck Jonathan administration in the first half of 2015, and about 12 per cent higher than the share withheld in 2013 and 2014.
The report said the figure of unremitted oil revenues in 2015 contrasted sharply with 2005 figures, which showed the NNPC remitted about 68 per cent of its total oil sale earnings to the Federation Account and kept only 32 per cent that year.
The report also said while part of the withheld funds was used for servicing Nigeria’s share of the joint venture operating obligations, the NNPC did not fully explain what the other retained revenues from domestic crude and NPDC oil sales were used for.
In general, the report said despite the on-going reforms in the oil sector, the NNPC under the present administration was still retaining a major share of oil sale earnings and spending at will.
Some of the reforms by the Buhari government, the report noted, have cut the number of passive, well connected middlemen that pocketed billions of oil revenues, while the administration has cancelled costly, unbalanced NNPC swap contracts as well as seek more efficient replacements.
The report lamented that recent announcements on NNPC reforms and the latest drafts of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, failed to adequately address how NNPC and the government would share future oil revenues
“Until government establishes a clear, legally enforceable rule governing which revenues NNPC can keep and how they can be spent, oil sector corruption and waste could return to their prior devastating levels once the president (Buhari) leaves, or prices rise,” the report noted.
While encouraging government to push ahead with its reform plans for the oil sector, NRGI stressed the need for NNPC to adopt new financial controls and transparency measures for its subsidiaries, especially bordering on the several billion revenues retained each year from NPDC operations and its oil trading and marketing subsidiaries.
The Institute also called for the immediate replacement of the 445,000 barrels per day crude oil allocation for domestic refining with a fit-for-purpose mechanism for supplies to the country’s four refineries.
“The government should move to curb the corporation’s discretionary, unaccountable use of much-needed public funds. Until the government instates clear rules for NNPC financing, both the controversies and the underlying revenue leakages will persist,” the report said.
Describing the NPDC as one of the Nigerian petroleum sector’s “great black boxes”, the report said some of the oil from the company’s fields went to its strategic alliance partners, two of which were paid in oil for purportedly shouldering the company’s financial obligations.
From the production of an average of 30,000 barrels per day of Okono grade crude during the period, the report said NNPC retained all earnings ( about $12.3 billion over the past decade) from the offshore Oil Mining Lease (OML) 119 owned wholly by NPDC.
Lol this is serious! Singer and popular mix-master, Sheyman has some blunt words for ladies who take selfies in hotel rooms ...But not all ladies visit hotels are shady though .
Wizkid is yet to publicly acknowledge his alleged babymama Binta Diamond and her son Ayodeji Ibrahim Jr, but the new mum has given his fans an opportunity to keep up with their son on social media and watch him grow.
Wizkid and Binta
The Guinean-American made this announcement on her page yesterday when she shared new photos of the adorable boy. “King Ayo Balogun“, the Instagram page says, and contains daily photos of the boy, including never-seen-before shoots done days after his birth.
Recall that in her interview with The Shade Room, Binat said all she wants of Wizkid is for him to “to step up and be a man about his responsibilities.”
Well, we hope keeping up with the boy on social media will move him to do the right thing.
An Ekiti State High Court on Wednesday sentenced two students of Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Akintunde Olumide and Oladapo Olaoluwa, to a three-year jail term for their involvement in secret cult- related activities. Justice Mosun Abodunde convicted the accused persons after finding them guilty of a three-count of stealing, assault and cultism.
In her judgment, she said that the prosecution proved the case beyond reasonable doubt. She noted that the accused made confessional statements as members of Black Axe at the Criminal Investigation Department during interrogation. She added that the police found in their custody a small cutlass, black head warmer; black T-shirt and black trousers during investigation.
The judge held that the short cutlass could not be compared with the one used for agriculture or weeding grass. “It is not a tool for education; it is a weapon of danger and destruction which should not be seen within the school premises,” she added. Justice Abodunde said the exhibits recovered from the convicts made their culpability in the crime weighty.
In proving the case, the police called four witnesses while the defence counsel, Mr. Emmanuel Oluwole, also called three witnesses to prove his case. The prosecutor, Mr. Femi Falade, told the court that the accused committed the offence on July 13, 2013, at an hotel in Iworoko Ekiti. He said the offences were punishable under Section 355,4(1) of Criminal Code Laws of Ekiti State 2012 and Secret cults (Abolition and Prohibition).
Bless You and A Very Happy New Month. The New Month of happiness has arrived, Get ready to gather all the treasure of blessings, May we Praise Almighty God from dawn to dusk, Help others by giving them smiles and happiness, So everyone can enjoy the celebration of a new dawn
Esegine Allen better known by his stage name Orezi, celebrated his 30th birthday on Monday, March 28 with an exclusive getaway with friends and colleagues in his industry. Some of the stars who partied with the Delta-State born singer include Iyanya, Lil Kesh, Emmanuel Ikubese, Denrele Edun, Nancy Isime, Beverly Osu and many others.
Just a day after Prophet TB Joshua claimed he predicted the hijacking of an EgyptAir plane, he has released another controversial YouTube clip claiming he predicted the Indian deadly bridge collapse.
"Pray for this country, India," Joshua is seen telling congregants at The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN).
"I am seeing a very huge bridge broken and when a bridge divides into two, what do you think will happen to everybody?" he added, describing the location of the bridge as 'close to the river'. Joshua went on to say the incident would elicit 'Breaking News' headlines worldwide, calling on people to publicise his message online as a means of warning the Indian public prior to the impending calamity. "I am seeing this happen; they should take care of Thursday, Wednesday," he added. "Please, pray for this nation... Innocent people going." On Thursday 31st March 2016, a bridge under construction in Kolkata, a city built next to the Hooghly River, tragically collapsed, killing scores of people and injuring hundreds of others.
The accident took place in an area near Girish Park, one of Kolkata's most densely populated and busiest neighborhoods.
Terrifying surveillance footage of the moment the bridge collapsed showed pedestrians desperately fleeing for their lives before a mass of solid concrete came crashing down.
Shocking images posted online showed bloodied bodies trapped under concrete slabs with hands and legs sticking out from twisted debris.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was "shocked and saddened" by the tragedy and the Indian army were quickly mobilized to support the rescue team.
The death toll has been placed at 22 but is still expected to significantly rise as the rescue mission proceeds into the night.
A Beninoise woman is currently standing trial over the theft of a property running into millions of naira. A 42-year-old food vendor, Janet Kenu, who allegedly broke into a residential house and stole jewellery worth N40 million, was Thursday charged before an Igbosere Magistrates’ Court in Lagos.
Kenu, from Cotonu in Benin Republic, is standing trial on a three-count charge of conspiracy, stealing and breaking and entering. Prosecuting Corporal Cyriacus Osuji told the court that the defendant committed the alleged offences on March 10, at noon, at A10, Nicon Town, Lekki Expressway, Lekki, Lagos.
He said that the defendant broke into the house of one Ajisola Yomi, and stole jewellery worth N40 million.
According to the prosecutor the offences contravened Sections 285 (, 305 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.
The defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges. Section 285 (7) provides for seven years imprisonment for any person found guilty of such offence.
Magistrate A. G. Omoyele granted her bail in the sum of N1 million with two sureties in the like sum, who should not be low level civil servants and must have verifiable addresses.
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, 305 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.